Speak of the devil and he shall appear …

Hael shoves his boot into the open door to keep Whitney from closing it. In the same breath, he hefts up a pair of bolt cutters that he’s holding by his side and snaps the lock in its sharp jaws. He shoves the door open and steps inside while Victor comes back to help us with Aaron. I’m fully prepared to get under one of Aaron’s arms and brace him until we get in the front door, but Vic just grabs his friend under the legs and around the waist and hoists him up into his arms.

My brows go up as I watch Vic carry him toward the front door and up the few steps that lead to the porch. Aaron Fadler is no lightweight; he’s built and muscular, but Vic carries him like he weighs little to nothing at all, setting him gently down on Nurse Yes-Scott’s pretty yellow couch. Well, that’s ruined. I sneer at her as she stands nearby, wringing her hands.

“He really should be at a hospital right now …” she says, sweat beading on her forehead. She’s dressed in a loose white t-shirt and lace-trimmed black silk shorts, clearly ready for bed. Her blond hair is piled in a messy bun on her head, her brown eyes flicking from Callum and his bloodied baseball bat to the boy moaning on her ruined sofa.

“Not happening,” Vic says, standing up and turning to face her. “Do what you can do here and give me an assessment of where he’s at.”

Nurse Yes-Scott swallows hard and then moves into a small bathroom off the main living area, grabbing some supplies, and coming to sit on the coffee table in front of Aaron. He’s shirtless now, so I can see his bruise, the wound in his arm, and the fresh, shiny blood that won’t stop coming.

“I can clean this up, but he really needs a blood transfusion.”

“Aaron’s O-positive,” Vic says, his voice like ice. “Where can we get some?”

“Get some?” Whitney asks, turning to look at him like he’s lost his mind. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, where can we fucking get some?” Victor repeats, and Nurse Whitney goes completely pale. She knows what she’s done, what we did to Scott Vaughn, and she better believe we’ll burn this place to the ground if she doesn’t cooperate. My hands curl into fists at my sides as I stare at her, wishing I’d added her to the list, too. We haven’t had much in the way of personal interaction, but she’s a big part of Vaughn’s operation, tricking the poor girls of Prescott High into making her money off their own backs. “Can we rob an ambulance or something?”

“A-ambulances don’t carry blood,” she whispers, biting her lower lip as she turns back to Aaron. “He needs a hospital—”

“The hospital then,” Victor says, not skipping a beat. “What all do we need?”

“You can’t be serious?” Whitney chokes as Vic passes over his phone, his expression a dark slice of hell.

“Make me a list. Now. I really hate repeating myself.”

Nurse Whitney grabs Vic’s phone and quickly types up a list of supplies before passing it back to him.

“Let’s hit Joseph General,” Victor says, glancing over at Hael. “Security is much lighter, and the place gets tons of trauma patients; it’s a madhouse over there, so they don’t notice shit. Let’s grab some cash before we go. Might be easier to bribe somebody than it would be to just pinch it.”

“Got it,” Hael says, nodding as I gape at the two of them.

“You can’t be serious?” I ask, looking between the boys. I'm torn between being worried and being pissed off. Glancing back at Aaron, I see his pallid expression and my heart seizes in my chest. He can't die on me, not when things are so … confusing between us. Putting my hands over my face, I drag them down and then give Victor a look that could kill.

He smiles at me, but it isn't a nice smile.

It's a smile nightmares are made of, and I hate how much I love that.

At this point, I'm fairly certain we're soul mates. We must be, with how fucked-up we are. Put us together, and the fucked-up factor amplifies by about a hundred times. I put a finger up, pointing directly at Vic. He's the leader: Aaron is his responsibility.

“Fine,” I start, poking him in the chest. “You let him die, and I'll cut your fucking balls off.” Nurse Whitney makes a small squeaking sound behind me, but I ignore her. She reaped the fruits of others’ suffering, of their labor, their sacrifice. She recruited girls for Principal Vaughn’s bullshit and reveled in that glory. I really should've added her to my list; Oscar was right.

Vic snorts and grabs my hand, bringing my finger to his lips and sucking it between them in the lewdest possible way. Hael shakes his head and puts his hands on his hips, clearly annoyed with Vic and me and our weird shit.

“If he dies, I'll sharpen the knife,” Victor says, dropping my hand, but I snatch his wrist before he can turn away, raising his dark brows my direction. “Yes, darling?”

“Don't pull that darling shit on me,” I growl, yanking him close. He comes to me, but not because I actually have the strength to move him, but because we're drawn together. Because we're beautiful poison together. Perfect toxicity. “You and Hael come back to me. If either of you gets arrested …”

“Yes, balls, knife, no Havoc babies.” Vic grabs me by the back of the hair with a punishing grip and crushes his lips to mine, taking down my walls with that lush mouth of his. “Don't worry: I'm not going to the hospital.” He lifts his head up and gestures in Hael's direction. “He is. I'm going to find out why none of our crew told us a goddamn pig was at the house.” Vic scowls as he pulls away, nodding at Callum as he passes.

My eyes meet Cal’s blue ones, and I lick my lower lip.

Aaron's body is broken; I'm worried about Callum's soul.

“This is so crazy,” Whitney murmurs from behind me. I turn my head slowly as Vic and Hael slip out the door, just two shadows in the night. Whatever she sees on my face must scare the shit out of her because she stands up, leaving a pale-faced and groaning Aaron alone on the sofa.

“What can we do to help him while we wait?” I ask, my voice a cold thread of steel. “Because if he dies here tonight, so do you.” Whitney's face pales and she takes another step back, looking at me like she's considering calling the cops and risking sending us all to jail, just to save her own ass. What she doesn't know or maybe just hasn't figured out, is that Callum isn’t going to let her get anywhere near a phone, a door, or a window. She's stuck here, for better or worse.

“We need to elevate his legs and keep him warm,” she says, swallowing hard, stray strands of hair coming loose from her bun and sticking to her sweaty forehead. She's got full-on hooker makeup on her face, probably from some long-ago Halloween party. My throat tightens up as I think about the altercation in the fun house, of Danny aiming the gun at me, of Callum lifting the baseball bat.

Fuck.

“He could go into shock …” Whitney continues, giving Callum a wary look.

But she needn't worry about him.

If something happens to Aaron, I'll become her worst nightmare.

“Fine. Get a warm rag, some blankets, pillows. Get him orange juice or something.” I bark out the orders, even though I have no clue what I'm doing. But somebody has to do something, so it may as well be me. Take him to a hospital, Bernadette. The rational part of my mind is screaming at me, but the other part, the darker part, is fully immersed in the world of Havoc.